WTN: 2005 Parallèle "45" Côtes du Rhône Paul Jaboulet Aîne France.

2005 Parallèle "45" Côtes du Rhône Paul Jaboulet Aîne Southern Rhone France. $12.25 at a new retailer in Ridgewood; imported by Frederic Wildman, New York. 13.5% alcohol.

Deep red color, deep hue, very good fruit and spice aroma, rather harsh and disjointed attack which smoothed out over time, good tannins, medium mouth feel, long finish with fruit and spice notes, a bit too much alcohol for my taste. 3*.

I used most of this bottle to make an outstanding marinaded lamb shish kabob with several roasted garden vegetables: red and yellow peppers, onion, summer squash and zucchini. The lamb was cut up stew pieces from Jamison; the basic marinade:

1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, peeled and pressed
1 tbsp. powdered ginger
1 tbsp. rosemary leaves or 1 tsp. pulverized
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 c. Dijon mustard

In the event, I doubled the recipe for two pounds of lamb; did not use the soy sauce; replaced the powdered ginger with a lovely lightly candied ginger root from Australia; and used half the rosemary. I left the lamb pieces in the marinade for two days in the fridge, then lightly browned the lamb in the marinade in a heavy skillet, before adding three quarters of the wine, and simmering for two and a half hours, the last half hour with the cover removed. The resulting sauce was delicious, and the entire meal was delicious on our deck, watching the sunset and all of the evening wildlife flying by.

Frankly, we liked the wine much better as a braising liquid than as a wine for drinking, but it worked just fine with this meal.

Regards, Bob

Thanks for sharing the recipe, Bob.

You are most welcome, Jane. [As my son says: "No problem."]

The sauce is remarkably pleasing.

Haven't seen this one yet, Bob; I think I have the '04 on my shelves now, and still had the '03 as late as December of January and didn't think much of it. Here're my notes on that one:

2003 E. Guigal Côtes du Rhône, $14.99, 13% alc.: Dark garnet color, with a funky vegetal nose that follows through on the palate with some prune-y plum underneath; decent depth, structure and length, and definitely NOT in the “international” style, but I’m not the biggest fan of a wine that tastes and smells like overcooked broccoli, or worse, Brussels sprouts. More fruit emerges with air, but not enough to save this for me; that’s not to say that it’s not drinkable, it is, but only once. Maybe I needed to pair it with grilled gizzard of Molesworth, because I can’t for the life of me understand where the noted Wine Spectator critic got “muscular black cherry and toast flavors followed by tar, vanilla and tobacco on the finish” from this. Maybe he got the special “reviewers’ cuvée”…?

Just my 2 oz.,

geo

Good price on the P45 at least, Bob! I don't think I've really enjoyed one of these since the early '90s: they usually come up simple and short compared to similarly priced (or cheaper ) CdRs. As Geo's heard repeatedly from me, I think that it's hard to do better for CdR at this price point than Dom. de L'Espigouette (Bernard Latour)'s Vieilles Vignes bottling, which J et R imports for those of us in flyover country and sells these days for ~$12 a bottle. Those who are Brett-averse might think differently though, as they are a bit heavy on the meat/game/funk end of the spectrum. Yum!!

Mark Lipton

2003 E. Guigal Côtes du Rhône, $14.99, 13% alc.:

Pssst... (poke poke) check the title of this thread again, Geo. Agreed about the note, though. '03 and Guigal is a combination I'd go out of my way to avoid.

Mark Lipton

2003 E. Guigal Côtes du Rhône, $14.99, 13% alc.:

Pssst... (poke poke) check the title of this thread again, Geo. Agreed about the note, though. '03 and Guigal is a combination I'd go out of my way to avoid.

Mark Lipton

Oops! Senior moment...

[David M. Bueker]

Ah what does it matter - just another generic, mass-produced, not as good as it used to be Cotes du Rhone.

Seriously though, while there isn't really much at the P45 price point, for a very few dollars more you can do so much better that it's no longer even worth considering the Jaboulet IMO.

"Seriously though, while there isn't really much at the P45 price point, for a very few dollars more you can do so much better that it's no longer even worth considering the Jaboulet IMO."

I agree generally David. But I was rushed, it was the only CdR in the shop, and I really had to start braising that lamb!

It seems to me that I've known about this wine for years, but I was shocked to find that this was the first time I've actually tried it. As I noted, it worked remarkably well as a braising wine -- I'm pretty sure that after two and a half hours the alcohol was virtually all gone, and the remaining taste and color was very pretty indeed.

"Dom. de L'Espigouette (Bernard Latour)'s Vieilles Vignes bottling"

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark. As noted to David, my choice of store and wine was limited this time, but I'll give the L'Espigouette a try.

I don't see it offered by any retailers in NY/NJ but Wine Searcher Pro lists a couple of Connecticut shops with the L'Espigouette on offer. Thanks. Bob

Ah what does it matter - just another generic, mass-produced, not as good as it used to be Cotes du Rhone.

Seriously though, while there isn't really much at the P45 price point, for a very few dollars more you can do so much better that it's no longer even worth considering the Jaboulet IMO.

Agreed. Back in the day, Guigal and Jaboulet used to produce our go-to everyday CdRs, but both have since gone way downhill, so that I tend to think of them somewhat interchangably now.

Pass the Geritol, please...